Donald Trump’s distraction machine crashes and burns

| 8:38 am EDT June 25, 2018
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Last night Donald Trump decided that he suddenly needed to create a five-alarm distraction, the kind he saves for when he knows that the biggest of bombshells are about to surface about the worst of his scandals. In these situations Trump tries to start a feud with a public figure outside of politics, in order to make sure it gets reported in pop culture headlines, and not merely political headlines. The thing is, this time it didn’t work.

This time around Trump decided to pick a fight with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon of all people, after Fallon expressed regret at having been far too soft on Trump when he was a guest on the show during the campaign. This fit with Trump’s pattern of attacking popular and well liked people, whether it be an agreeable guy like Fallon, or a beloved athlete like Steph Curry, or a respected war hero like John McCain. After all, the more inappropriate it is to attack a given person, the bigger the controversy you can generate by attacking that person. But this didn’t go anywhere.

Trump’s tweet attacking Jimmy Fallon got fewer likes than any of previous his six tweets. Fallon’s name only climbed to number nine of the U.S. trending topics list on Twitter. In other words, Trump failed to create the level of controversy here that he was hoping for. It used to be that if he attacked someone, their name would all but automatically reach the top of the trending list. No more. Google News search results for “Donald Trump” – which are based partly on the level of public interest and click through – reveal that the Fallon attack was only the third highest Trump story of the day, behind Trump’s immigrant child scandal and his failed trade war.

In other words, the general public is less interested in Donald Trump’s petty feuds than ever. Even if most Americans were only paying attention to this garbage for the same reason they stare at a train wreck, the shock value of his words appears to be wearing off. Trump’s decision to abduct kids and lock them in cages is far more shocking than anything he can tweet. This means that Trump’s ability to distract us from his scandals and crimes is waning, at a time when he’s more in need of a distraction than ever.